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Thursday, February 23, 2017

Review: The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti

*An advanced reader's copy was provided by the publisher for an honest review*

Potential in this one, but fell on the execution. Like a gymnast on the bar, just couldn't stick the landing. And the routine was mostly Hawthorne trying to get momentum, but could only swing back and forth while dangling.

Lizzie Lovett disappeared and no one knows why. They think she was too good for the town. Killed herself. Murdered by her boyfriend. Hawthorne thinks she turns into a werewolf and ran off into the woods. Who knows. But Hawthorne is off to find the truth--Did Lizzie really run away? Was she murdered by her boyfriend? Did she really turn into a werewolf and now roams the surrounding woods?
Hawthorne is obsessed with Lizzie. Her disappearance has her snooping around the life of her. Working at her old job. Hanging around with her boyfriend. Dating her boyfriend. People are talking. Hawthorne is not listening. She is consumed with Lizzie. Her life. Her disappearance. Her everything. The more convoluted she ventures into Lizzie's life, the more Hawthorne becomes a faux Lizzie. Even to the point when the mystery behind where Lizzie went is finally concluded.

I did and did not like this story. Hawthorne is a stick in the mud. Her character is dull as rusty razor blades sitting in the shower caddy. And when she subsumes Lizzie's personality, she has lost her purpose. Unreliable, unlikeable, and unimpressive, Hawthorne does not do justice as the protagonist to this book. Lizzie should be the true star, yet we are dumped with Hawthorne and her crackpot ideas surrounding Lizzie going missing. Why am I reading a story about a character unreliably becoming another character? I don't know. But the act of Hawthorne trying to find her own place in the world by putting on a Lizzie Lovett morphsuit is not a story I found appealing.

A teenage misfit named Hawthorn Creely inserts herself in the investigation of missing person Lizzie Lovett, who disappeared mysteriously while camping with her boyfriend. Hawthorn doesn't mean to interfere, but she has a pretty crazy theory about what happened to Lizzie. In order to prove it, she decides to immerse herself in Lizzie's life. That includes taking her job... and her boyfriend. It's a huge risk — but it's just what Hawthorn needs to find her own place in the world.

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